Review against Bridgebuilders # 1631
1/ Open room: East opened a borderline 1D (14 hcps, 4333 balanced, all suits stopped – and no jack-points, so 1NT is an option even with 14). South’s 1H overcall followed by West’s 1S (promising 5-card spades, because with 4 the negative double is the normal bid). North raised South’s hearts to 2H, and East’s 2S seemed like a quite weak, competing bid. South’s 3H competing became the final contract. Play is not interesting: there are 5 unescapable losers (1-1 in trumps and minors, and 2 in spades), so one down is the real result.
Closed room: nearly same bidding, but West (me) thought, that with double fit (D and S) the 3rd-level competing will be OK. So the final contract was 3S by West, which succeeded (needed to guess D jack well). 3 IMPs for us.
2/ Open room: West on 3rd place opened with Axxxxxx 7-carder a weak 3D – and went one down.
Closed room: West (me) opened only 2D with that hand – it was a mistake, because the event was a team match. So better to use weak openings as high as possible. After North’s 3C overcall South bidded the 3NT – bingo. Maybe defence would be better with a non-diamond lead; but we have to recognize, that in both majors declarer really had double stopper, so had time to establish D tricks. 11 IMPs for opps.
3/ Same contract (4S), in open room after a weak 2H opening, in closed room after a strong 2NT and Stayman. Real contract, real unlucky failing (2 H, D ace and 2 D ruff to lose). Push board.
4/ Same 4S contract, H lead, both =, If I’d duck when put the C queen, and let Miksa to get the trick with J, then I’d get a ruff for one down... Push board.
5/ Open room: North opened 2NT with 4441 22 points and singleton S Q. Then N-S reached 3NT and made +2. Closed room: 3NT+2 via 2C-2D-2NT. It is Al-Yvon”s business to open 2NT with an unstopped singleton (if they can manage it, OK) – I prefer the 2C-2D way. Push board.
6/ Open room: after West’s 1H, East bidded 1NT and West followed 2C. North now overcalled 2D, East has shown stopper (K) with 2NT, South raised D to 3 – and after a penalty defenders found the best defence: trumping. They could restrict our C-H crossruffs, so contract down 2 doubled.
Closed room: East answered the normal 1S to 1H opening, and E-W reached the spade game – which is a bit brave, 23 hcps only (I bidded the game because of the single D, opponent’s overcalled suit, which is a good value when they bidded this suit). Maybe contract was not irreal at all, but 1-5/5-1 distribution in H-C gave a ruff to defence for -1… 9 IMPs for opps.
7/ 1H opening by South and Bergen 3C at both tables – but then in closed room Miksa overcalled 3D which I raised to 4. The final contract was 4H: one down in open room, two down in closed room. The diamond overcall helped to lead: open room’s club lead gave a trick to declarer. 3 IMPs for us.
8/ Same 1H-1NT-2H bidding: in the closed room opponent’s S lead gave a trick, so we made, while in the open room they went one down. 4 IMPs for us.
9/ Open room: 1S (North) – 2C (GF by South) – 2H – 3NT. Only the D king lead would have been the killer (4 D and H ace for defence), but who leads K from Kx even if unbid suit? Very-very needed the 3-3 spade split: just enough weak 3NT in points…
Closed room: North did not open with 11, so after 1C-1S-1NT-3H-pass bidding opps failed in 3H because of our 5-1 split. 10 IMPs for us, deuce.
10/ After 1S-1NT by West-East int he open room North overcalled a brave 3H with 6-4-2-1 distribution. Opponentes reached the game – but went one down. In the closed room the overcall was only 2H, and then we stopped in 2S, made an overtrick. So for the same 9 tricks 6 IMPs for us.
11/ 1S by South, 1S overcall from West, then 3NT final contract at NS – and the „short stopper disease”: Ax and KQ in opponent’s suit. In the closed room declarer guessed badly the C Q, so they went one more down: 2 IMPs for us.
12/Open room: 1NT (West) – 2D xfer by East, 2S overcall at South, penalty dbl by West (I think), then 3C at East, 3NT by West, North doubled (Kx in partner’s suit) – and East did not believe West’s good spade stopper, so escaped from the game into 4C partscore – and went two down.
Closed room: a lucky misunderstanding. 1NT-p-2D-2S-dbl was the same. And my double was for penalty. But with Miksa we play hoki-style (nearly no penalty on 2-3 level), so he handled it as t/o and bidded 3C. With good C fit and triple S stopper I tried 3NT. After S ace I established clubs, but did not pull: that would be dangerous (self-squeeze of the hand, and D was the dangerous suit). So tried a H finesse (failed), and ducked the next S. South was in trouble then: S lead gives the missing trick in S, D lead gives an extra trick to dummy’s king. So 3NT made. 11 IMPs for us.
13/ Open room: when a gadget goes bad… After North’s 1NT (18 hcps) opening West overcalled 2S – as spade and a minor. East had a very good C (KQJxxxx) and a D void with xxx in spades. Bidded 3C – but this is the „tell me your minor as pass or correct”-option. East must be sure in West’s diamonds (if West would have C too, how could North open 1NT with 0-1 C!), so the 3C pushed them automatically into 3S, which went two down. Either pass or – if system allows – 2NT would be better from East: 3C is bad, because partner never will manage it as natural… So East must overcall 1NT immediately somehow, to show good one-suiter.
Closed room: 1D (North: too strong for 1NT) – 3C (East, weak jump with good suit) – p-p-dbl (strong hand) – p – 3H-p-4H. Our defence defeated their game (-2), so 9 IMPs for us.
14/ Open room: 1D (South) – dbl – 3D (10 hcps, but a single H king, good D, nothing else) – and a disciplined pass. 3D=.
Closed room: 1C (South, 3-3 minors) – 1D (North) – 1NT-2NT. The !H ace is the killing lead – but who can find a single K… We gave an overtrick at the end, so 1 IMP for opps.
Nice winning after we got nearly -20 IMPs at the beginning…